Honour of the Fire dragon king
by chloemcg
Summary: One-shot. Not too long after the death of Igneel the fire dragon king and the other dragons, Natsu travels back to the mountains where Igneel raised him as a way to honour his late adopted father.


**Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters of Fairy tail, the rights to the characters belongs to Hiro Mashima AND NOT ME!**

 **Honour of the Fire dragon king.**

* * *

The Fairy tail guild had been as loud, noisy and as lively as it had ever been.

Everyone was bustling (with the exception of Gajeel, Levy, Gray, Juvia and even Wendy and Carla whom had decided to go on a job) and jolly music had blared through the guildhall. Most of the guild members were either preparing to go on a job, recuperating after returning from a job or simply settling down to have lunch. Mira had served the guild members their snacks and had passed out a drink here and there from the bar with a friendly smile as she contentedly served everybody their meals.

Everything was normal...or _almost_ normal.

The abnormality was that a certain Dragon slayer with spiky pink hair who wore a scarf that looked similar to scales was strangely absent from the guild and what was even stranger was that he hadn't taken his two teammates with him or even informed them as to where he was going.

It just wasn't like him to pull an abrupt vanishing act like this!

Natsu Dragneel had been acting strangely absentminded prior to this, though, so maybe something like this had become inevitable and his guild family couldn't help but fret over their friends sudden disappearance yet, at the same time, they knew that when he did do something like this it usually meant that Natsu simply needed some time to be by himself with naught but his thoughts.

Of course everybody in the entire guild wondered where the fire wizard had gone and Natsu's teammates, Happy and Lucy, were no exception to this.

Lucy was seated at a bench beside the door, casting occasional glances out the door in hopes of seeing Natsu waltz in any second now but she felt her heart sink with disappointment when she couldn't see any signs of the owner of that heartwarming yet playful fanged grin coming any sign soon and alas, even after waiting and waiting, he just didn't come. The Celestial wizard felt a pang of worry jab her in the heart and her brown eyes softened to paint a look of pure concern upon her face.

She couldn't help but ask the same question everybody else had:

Where was Natsu?

Lucy picked at her salad with a fork, absentmindedly lifting up one of the cabbage leaves with the tines as though the piece of cutlery was a shovel. Her heart dropped from her chest and landed in her stomach and she just couldn't stay focused nor stay still as just seemed to grow rather fidgety. Not having the pink-haired pyro there wasn't right...it shouldn't have been right yet she couldn't exactly understand why this was bothering her so much anyway.

The Celestial wizard's heart sunk a bit as she tried to rid herself of the concern that had plagued her mind, she knew that Natsu could handle himself when in dire situations but there was just something that acted as a great source of perturbation. She glanced across the table to look at the young blue cat, Happy, whom looked just as troubled as she did.

The young exceed had grabbed a fish in both of his paws and nommed away at it, however he didn't feast on it as feverishly as normal.

Lucy could read the dull atmosphere like a book and she had decided that this was the moment to voice that question that continued to niggle away at the back of her head. She lowered her gaze for a moment and sighed deeply, heaving the biggest breath that had ever became entangled within her throat, before she raised her gaze back up and managed to look the blue talking feline right in the eye.

"Happy, do you know where Natsu went?"

The exceed seemed momentarily taken off guard by the question and he almost dropped his fish, and although he understood the stellar wizard's concern, he shook his head and responded with a tone that revealed that he wasn't all that worried. He shrugged his little cat shoulders.

"Sorry, he just told me he'd be gone for a couple days..."

Lucy's facial expression dropped as she seemed disappointed by that answer.

Happy quickly started reading the atmosphere and could feel sweat trickle down his face, his perked ears drooped and his own face took on an expression of surprise and mild anxiety of having made matters worse.

The young exceed was quick to put on a reassuring smile that only a cat could pull off.

"Don't worry about Natsu, Lucy! He's tough! Sometimes he goes out when he needs some time to himself; he'll come back soon enough."

Lucy's concern diminished slightly when those words left the little, anthropomorphic blue cat said those words. She knew that she was probably being a bit silly by worrying so much —she just couldn't help it since Natsu's adopted father, Igneel, had been killed not too long ago and he seemed so depressed; although she guessed that she could understand since she had also lost her father not too long ago. Plus Natsu had searched long and hard for Igneel for years...and now he was gone and she couldn't help but wonder how lost he must have felt, how empty and void of purpose he was right now.

While the Fairy tail Celestial mage knew that she could trust the Dragon slayer to look after himself, she just felt helpless. She wanted to help but had no idea how she could go about doing that! Glancing out towards the double doors of the Guildhall with pure worry glinting in her dark brown eyes, she hoped that Natsu was alright. She tried not to dwell on it too much.

Lucy shovelled some thinly sliced turnips and a bit of lettuce on to her fork, she popped the vegetable-bearing utensil into her mouth and started to chew thoughtfully.

"Yeah...I hope you're right, Happy." She muttered.

* * *

 _Meanwhile, all the way on the other side of Earthland..._

The tall mountain peaks were large, proud and pointed landscapes of Brobdingnagian proportions; so high were they that thick puffs of cloudy cumulus even surrounded the points as to create a rather thick fog. Thus it was the tallest and most pronounced of these mountains that a certain fiery-tempered, pink-haired Fire wizard was climbing.

Natsu grit his fangs as he huffed and puffed breathlessly to try and regain some oxygen, sounding very much like a train out of steam. Sweat stuck to his skin like glue and trickled down his face in large droplets before dripping to the craggy ground beneath him.

He was so exhausted that he bent over and gripped his knees to keep himself properly upright.

His lungs felt as though they were floppy balloons with a teeny amount of air filling them as he sucked in oxygen.

He kept his gaze down as the sun beamed down on his back, the harsh rays of sunlight practically cooking his back to make it almost as hot as the fire burning inside of him. He could hear nothing but the wind blowing around him as well as the gravel crumble beneath his feet as he climbed the mountainside, making sure to dig the soles of his sandals in to keep himself upright as he started to resume making his ascent, the tails of his signature scaly scarf blowing in the sweltering Summer breeze.

It had been years since he had seen these mountains.

The last time he'd been here he was about 7 (or technically 393) years old. He'd just been left by his father, a venerable child left all alone, and so he made a hasty descent down the mountain in which he'd lived to try and search for the huge fire dragon; he was determined to search every single inch of this world for him and then return to the simple life they used to lead.

During his search, Natsu been taken in by the Fairy tail guild.

However it wasn't until many years later, when he'd grown up, that he'd made the discovery that his father had been living inside of him all those years and he'd escaped inside of him so not only could he and the other dragons protect their respective charges by producing antibodies that could prevent them from transforming into dragons, but also to await the time where they could be strong enough to battle against the evil tyrant dragon Acnologia.

The fiery dragon slayer could recall the hollow gnawing of nostalgia niggle away at his heart each time he'd remember Igneel and all the precious memories they had made together, such as the first time the Fire dragon king took him flying on his back for the first time and the time when both himself and Igneel had a fire dragon roar competition which ended up destroying a far off mountain range.

Those memories were priceless to him and he'd never trade them for anything.

Natsu could feel his muscles pull and tear since this tedious climb had resulted in his hamstrings pulling and his knees aching in protest with each and every step he had made to continue his slow ascension up the mountainside.

He pushed on and on until, eventually, he had finally made it to the summit.

The grass was luscious and trees stood tall and proud, the gentle gales causing the leaves to tremble and rustle as Mother Nature created its natural lullaby. White puffs of cloud levitated close to the craggy, rocky ground to create a rather thin fog due to the altitude of the beautiful (yet rather concealed) plains. Nothing had changed about this place at all, it was as though Natsu had never left.

The dragon slayer remembered when he was little, when his father and he had first arrived at these mountains, and he recalled believing that this was his own little paradise...a place where both he and Igneel could thrive...their home.

The fire wizard raised his head and sniffed the air, the faintest ghost of a scent that he recognised all too well; he caught the scent of smoke, urban herbal remedies and reptile.

Igneel's scent.

The fairy tail wizard desperately wanted to believe that he was smelling the recent smell of Igneel, to grab on to that blind desperate belief that he was around somewhere and about to fly down and land in front of him in a grand display in order to present his grand yet awe-inspiring self to the boy he'd raised. But he knew deep down that he was simply smelling the scent that lingered slightly from the one and only thing that resided within these mountains.

It brought on a sharp jab to Natsu's heart to acknowledge that he was simply smelling a phantom scent but he knew that he needed to focus on why he'd returned.

He slowly lowered himself to stand on his knees.

Natsu reached down towards the grass and then shovelled some of the soil up into one hand as he dug a small hole and it was when he'd finished that he produced a lean, rather rugged, specially-sculptured slab of stone from the large bag strapped to his back before sticking it into the small pit that he'd made. The pink-haired young man stared at the self-crafted headstone with saddened and watery eyes as he felt a second jab of pain strike him in the heart and he squeezed his eyes shut and tightened his jaw, gritting his strong ivory fangs so much that sparks could have burst from the friction whilst he read the words he, himself, had etched into the stone.

 **"R.I.P. Igneel Dragneel, Fire dragon king. Died X784. Loving father and guardian."**

"H-Hey, dad...I've come home." He spoke softly as he tried to hold back a sob.

The only answer he received was nothing but the sound of the wind blowing.

Natsu felt the wind blow in a gentle caressing breeze, the cool winds ruffled his spikes of rosy pink hair and caused the tails of his scarf to flutter. His heart felt empty due to the rawness of the wound recently left by Igneel's death. He could recall that time in exact, vivid detail. Onyx eyes widened slightly as the very last words his father had spoken to him, just after Acnologia tore him in half, rang loud in his ears and in his mind.

 _"You might think that I was the one who taught you everything, but you were my greatest teacher. You taught me how to love...never forget that."_

 _"Keep growing, know that I will always live in your heart..."_

Natsu knew those words were true, although he knew that Igneel's death would still leave a massive wound that would take a very long time to heal. He promised that he would get stronger and then defeat Acnologia, and then he planned to get the book of E.N.D, just like Igneel had asked him to before he...

He sighed.

He came here to honour Igneel and that's what he was going to do.

"This is for you."

Natsu closed his eyes and emptied his mind (something he found hard to do most of the time) of all thoughts. He breathed in and out with his strong, muscular shoulders raising up and down with each intake of oxygen that was sucked into his lungs which were starting to burn both from the intensity of how hard he was breathing and from the flames that started to fill them up. He raised his head, took a deep breath in, and blew out again and a jet of strong fire was launched as it was aimed high into the air.

He saw Igneel do this once while he took him down into the Dragon graveyard. Even though he was really young at the time, Natsu could sort of remember the large fire dragon king explaining to him that dragons breathed fire (or whatever element they specialised) into the air as a sort of ritual to honour those who had gone.

The fire swirled, whirled, crackled, flickered and sizzled as it climbed high into the sky —embers that fizzled from the flames popped like teeny fireworks as the fire sailed upwards and made its ascension. The dragon slayer opened his eyes, he watched in awe and wonder since this reminded him of a fireworks display.

The flames climbed higher and higher until it finally evaporated into the air.

Doing this made him feel a bit better, at least.

He looked back at the grave he'd made and proceeded to muster a gentle smile at it, revealing his glinting fangs, and he placed one hand on top of the stone with the tips of his fingers hooking themselves along the sharp ridges.

"Try to rest easy, dad..." He said as his voice softened again.

He blinked his eyes but when they flew back open, his pupils had turned from their normal obsidian colour to a jade green with aggressive slitted pupils. He could feel fire start to blaze intensely within his stomach and overflow throughout his lungs as he renewed his vow from that day.

"I promise that I'll avenge you and become so strong that Aconolgia won't even know what hit him."

* * *

 **A/N: Hi, guys! Here's a new FT story about what Natsu does to honour Igneel. Since the FT years confuse me, I was sort of confused as to what year Igneel actually died so I hope I got it right. I also took some inspiration from "Dragon Cry" at the beginning of the movie (watch it to know what I mean if you haven't).**

 **I had a bit of writers block so please forgive the fact that this took longer then I had originally intended.**

 **Have a nice day/afternoon/evening/night, everybody!**

 **-Chloemcg**


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